Google Play Music's Songza-powered contextual playlists first went live way back in October of 2014, but at the time, it was only in the US and Canada. A larger, international rollout has apparently been on Google's "to-do" list since (the UK did get them shortly after, though), and it appears that in the last few days users in a handful of countries have seen the feature pop up. Right now, we're aware of contextual playlists for Play Music going live in Poland, the Czech Republic, Ukraine, and South Africa - but there are quite possibly more countries that should be in the list or will be added soon.

Have you ever opened up Street View in Google maps and tried to move more than a couple of steps to get a good look around? It's useful and kinda cool, but also utterly horrible. Every move required a tap on the little arrows at the bottom, and you had to wait a little bit after each tap before making the next one. Plus, the arrows weren't always very clear about where they would take you. Seriously, it was really bad. But there's great news: Google is throwing out the old arrows and switching to a new swipe-to-move feature that makes Street View super fluid and much easier to use.

For many of us, the Street View name is linked to a convenient way to look around at places we haven't been, whether it's just an address we're about to drive to or one of the world's greatest mountains. We don't usually associate it with making money, but a lot of businesses have started investing in virtual tours to attract more customers. For a few years, Google has been working to help businesses pair up with independent photographers and agencies to capture scenery for potential visitors. The interface for this was entirely web based, but now it looks like some of the operations will soon become available through the Street View app itself.

It's been a while since we've heard anything from the Paranoid Android ROM team. Perhaps that's because ROM flashing has fallen by the wayside a bit as stock and skinned Android has made serious improvements, perhaps it's because a lot of the original team was hired by OnePlus to work on its Oxygen OS builds. Whatever the reason, they're back now. While PA is definitely late to the Marshmallow party (the last time they issued a major release was almost a year ago), the team has been revitalized with new developers and support for new devices.

Apple announced a new revenue sharing policy in the App Store earlier today. The company said it would change the subscription revenue split from 70/30 to a more generous 85/15 after those subscriptions have been active for a year or more. We were wondering if Google would follow suit, and it didn't take long. Recode is reporting that Google will be doing just that, but it's actually an even better deal for developers.

Opera already has a handful of browsers in the Play Store, and today you can add one more to the list. The new Opera browser has a focus on news and social media, along with a revamped interface. You can try it right now, but it's only officially available in the US Play Store. We've got the APK below, of course.

The Idol 3 was a solid phone when it came out last year, but Alcatel quickly fell behind on Android updates. As of now, this phone is still running 5.0.2, but that's about to change. The Marshmallow update is going to start hitting devices today. Like they say, better late than never.

Now that the primary Galaxy S7 series has regained its water-resistant powers, one might wonder why we need a ruggedized "active" version. And the answer is that, while the S7 and S7 Edge are some damn fine phones, all that delicately curved and exposed glass isn't exactly what you'd call durable. If the general tank-like construction of the Galaxy S7 Active isn't enough to turn your head, consider that it has almost exactly the same capabilities as its more mainstream brother (which is fairly unusual for rugged phones), plus an even bigger 4000mAh battery.

Sony has made its so-called Small Apps a fixture on devices going all the way back to the Xperia T in 2012. For the unaware, they are floating apps that can provide quick access to things like email, a calculator, timer, and so on. On the Xperia X line of devices, Small Apps are no more.